Celebrate Cinco de Mayo with the Mexican Hat Dance is really two books in one, which may account for the fact it has two authors and two illustrators (and two translators!).

The first half is a simple story of a class of schoolkids learning the Mexican Hat Dance and preparing for a big party and show for their parents. It’s a fun read, with some repeated lines for your child to shout along with, always a hit at our house. The illustrations are colorful and cheerful; for some reason the color scheme was particularly appealing to me, bt I don’t think my kids noticed anything special about it.

The second half of the book is a non-fiction sort of book about the holiday. It primarily uses photographs, but the children from the earlier story do show up as accents. I found this portion nicely accessible to my kids; many of the strictly nonfiction books I tried did not catch their interest at all.

Celebrate Cinco de Mayo with the Mexican Hat Dance is one of a series of books called “Stories to Celebrate”, which includes holidays from many ethnic traditions, including Martin Luther King, Jr. Day, Chinese New Year, and the Fourth of July.